Obama going after rural voters; schedules forum Friday, policy summit next month in Iowa

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is turning his presidential campaign toward rural voters, who make up more than a third of the population in Iowa, where the first votes will be cast, and even more -- about 40 percent -- in the early-voting states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.

"Obama plans to host a rural policy forum on Friday in Dallas County, Iowa [just west of Des Moines], where he said he will gain insights directly from rural voters. He will also host a rural policy summit in Iowa in mid-August, which will focus on rural economic development, quality of life in rural communities, agriculture and renewable energy," Mike Glover of The Associated Press bureau in Des Moines reports on an interview with the candidate. "Obama isn't known as a candidate with much rural expertise, but he said his background in Illinois had given him insight into the challenges facing rural America."

Obama said rural and urban people share problems of health care access, failing school systems and lack of livable wages, but some issues are unique to rural, such as "spotty rural broadband and wireless coverage, underfunded community colleges and a need to make the most of the growing alternative energy industry," Glover writes. "Some candidates, including former Sen. John Edwards, already have released plans for rural development, and others will likely do so in coming months. While Obama gave no specific date for rolling out his rural policy plan, he said he has put together a team of experts to assist in the effort." (Read more)

North Dakota farmers, looking for more crop rotation to fight wheat fungus, sue to raise hemp

David Monson, looking at his canola field in photo by Dan Koeck, is "at the leading edge of a national movement to legalize growing hemp, a plant that shares a species name, a genus type and, in many circles, a reputation, with marijuana," Monica Davey reports for The New York Times from Osnabrock, N.D.

Monson "listens to Rush Limbaugh in his tractor . . . is the high school principal in nearby Edinburg, population 252 . . . [and] is a Republican representative in Bismarck, the state capital, where his party dominates both houses of the legislature and the governor is a Republican," Davey writes, with just a hint of wonder. The legislature "has passed a bill allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp and created an official licensing process to fingerprint such farmers and a global positioning system to track their fields," she reports.

"This year, Mr. Monson and another North Dakota farmer, with the support of the state’s agriculture commissioner, applied to the Drug Enforcement Administration for permission to plant fields of hemp immediately." But the DEA has not acted, and "hemp is considered the same as marijuana," Steve Robertson, a DEA agent at the agency's Washington headquarters, told the Times. Monson and another farmer have filed suit against the drug agency. Robertson told the Davey that the DEA was still reviewing their applications, but "he could not say much beyond that because of the litigation," she writes.

Hemp contains tetrahydrocannabinol, the substance that produces a marijuana high, but its advocates "note that it contains mere traces of THC, and that hemp (grown in other countries) is already found here in clothes, lotions, snack bars, car door panels, insulation and more," Davey writes. "Maine, Montana, West Virginia and other states have passed bills allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp, Alexis Baden-Mayer of Vote Hemp, a group that lobbies for legalization of it as a regulated crop and is helping with the lawsuit, told Davey.

In North Dakota, the hemp movement took off when wheat farmers like Monson saw their fields attacked by a fungus and needed to practice more crop rotation. "Its tall stalks survive similarly cool and wet conditions in Canada, just 25 miles north of here, where it is legal, Davey reports. Monson told her, "This is not any subversive thing like trying to legalize marijuana or whatever. This is just practical agriculture. We’re desperate for something that can make us some money." (Read more)

Federal judge in Virginia accepts plea deal, big fines for OxyContin makers -- but no jail

After asking why three executives of Purdue Pharma shouldn't go to jail for their marketing of the painkiller OxyContin, which became the scourge of the Appalachians, U.S. District Judge James Jones accepted a plea agreement that requires the company to pay $600 million in fines. "While this may not be a popular decision, my job is not to make popular decisions but to follow the law," Jones said in court at Abingdon, Va.

"Jones said it would be improper to send someone to jail for something they didn't actually do," reports Laurence Hammack of The Roanoke Times. The executives "were held criminally accountable for misbranding committed by other company officials. In order to obtain convictions, prosecutors did not have to prove they even knew that crimes were being committed under their watch. Not only were the convictions based solely on the executives' positions of responsibility, there was also no evidence to link the misbranding to rampant abuse of OxyContin." The executives will pay $34.5 million in fines.

The executives "sat impassively through emotional statements by people who blame them for the overdose deaths of their loved ones. Other speakers recounted their own near-death experiences," Hammack reports. "Fifty people from around the country . . . held a vigil near the courthouse in a steady rain before going inside." Hammack cites the staggering statistics: "In far Southwest Virginia alone, more than 200 people have died in the past decade from overdoses of oxycodone, an opium-based narcotic that is the active ingredient in OxyContin. Police have also reported dramatic increases in crime as addicts turn to fraud, theft and violence to support their habits." (Read more)

Sigma Delta Chi Awards have rural connections, including cartoonist -- and publisher who sees provocative editorial page as circulation booster

There were several winners with rural connections at last night's Sigma Delta Chi awards banquet at the National Press Club in Washington, but none so rural as Mike Lester of the Rome News-Tribune in Georgia, circulation 18,500, who won the for editorial cartooning in 2006. Few papers with circulation under 20,000 have editorial cartoonists, a point noted by the judges, who said, "We applaud the Rome News-Tribune, a small newspaper, for having a full-time editorial cartoonist on staff."

Publisher Burgett Mooney III said in an interview that he wanted a cartoonist because he sees a "provocative" editorial page as a way to build and maintain circulation. "It gives us a place to really drive people to the newspaper," he said. Lester has been cartooning for the paper for five years. He was living in Rome and doing cartoons for an online news service until the dot-com bubble burst, then Mooney recruited him.

Lester tackles local, state, national and international topics, but said in an interview that he tries to make two of five cartoons a week have some local connection, often through a setting that is not identified but that local will recognize as a locale in the town of 35,000. Lester is generally conservative, but has an independent streak. The newspaper "tends to be what is considered conservative on economic matters and liberal on social issues," said the editorial-page editor, Pierre-Rene Noth.

The News-Tribune is part of News Publishing Co., which also publishes seven weeklies in northwest Georgia and Cherokee County, Alabama. The Sigma Delta Chi Awards were established in 1932 by the organization now known as the Society of Professional Journalists. The current program began in 1939, when Sigma Delta Chi presented its first Distinguished Service Awards. When Sigma Delta Chi changed its name to SPJ in the 1980s, the original name was retained for the awards and SPJ's foundation. Its board includes Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Several awards were handed out last night for coverage of rural issues by urban media. Marx Arax of the Los Angeles Times won in the magazine-writing category for a series of stories on a California raisin picker. Todd Melby and Duane Richard of Chicago Public Radio won in radio documentary for "Flatlined: How Illinois Shortchanges Rural Students." Two awards were given for coverage of the Sago Mine disaster: to NBC Nightly News, for breaking news coverage on TV, and Mine Safety and Health News, for public service in newsletter journalism. For a complete list of this year's and past winners, click here.

Coal miner's video of leaking seals leads to citation for company, which denies it's related

At last week's U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration hearing on proposed new regulations for seals in coal mines, miner Charles Scott Howard played a video that showed seals cracked and leaking water in Cumberland River Coal Co.'s Band Mill No. 2 Mine in Letcher County, Kentucky.

This week, MSHA cited the subsidiary of Arch Coal Inc. for failing to conduct a pre-shift examination of the seals. "MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere said Tuesday that inspectors visited the Band Mill mine last Thursday and Friday to check the seals," reported Jim Warren of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Mine seals, which shut off abandoned portions of coal mines from areas where miners are working, are supposed to be checked before each work shift begins." (Read more)

Today, Arch Coal said the citation was not issued for "unsafe conditions," such as the water leaks. Kim Link, a company spokeswoman, said it was "MSHA’s interpretation of the regulation that required a pre-shift exam daily, rather the weekly exam that was currently in place." She said five daily inspections, rather than the three required by law, were made when the seals were leaking in April and May, and the mine recorded more than 178,000 employee-hours of operations last year with no accidents or injuries. (Read more)

Savannah Morning News is latest metro paper to curtail circulation in outlying counties

Another metropolitan newspaper is reducing the size of its circulation area, continuing a trend that can put more pressure on rural news outlets to cover the issues and hold local officials accountable. The Savannah Morning News announced today that it is "discontinuing home delivery along with store and rack deliveries to 17 outlying counties and portions of three others," the paper reports. "Under the plan, 95 percent of the newspaper's circulation will be within a 60-mile radius" of Georgia's main coastal city. (Map from MSN Encarta)

"Market conditions, rising fuel prices, additional taxes, postal rate increases and advertiser pressures have combined to affect newspaper distribution costs and have forced the Savannah Morning News, like many other newspapers, to reconsider its delivery processes," Morning News reporter Christian Livermore writes. He quotes Publisher Julian Miller: "Right now, we're delivering out about 120 miles - places where we have just a few subscribers and single-copy customers. With the cost of gasoline, labor, paper, trucking, everything has combined to make it impossible to recoup your investment that far out."

While many counties are affected, the change affects relatively little of the paper's circulation of 52,000. "About 1,025 subscribers are in the affected area," Livermore writes. "The Morning News will continue to distribute in 14 counties, including Chatham, Bryan, Effingham and Liberty counties in Georgia and Beaufort and Jasper counties in South Carolina." The story notes that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution "cut Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and parts of Georgia from its circulation territory" this year. (Read more)

Edwards tour wrapup: Coverage from the mountain papers to the metropolitans and networks

The purely rural day of presidential candidate John Edwards' "poverty tour," officially titled "Road to One America," produced much coverage in Central Appalachia and beyond. Here are tidbits and links:

The official end of the tour was in Prestonsburg, where the weekly Floyd County Times ran the photo above (by Ralph Davis), posted video on its Web site and YouTube and reported: "Edwards' speech focused on strengthening the lives of American workers, through higher wages, education and tax cuts. Although he spoke frankly about the broad spectrum between 'the very rich' and "everybody else," Edwards also said, 'People who are highly educated do very well.'" (Read more)

Jodi Deal of The Coalfield Progress in Norton, Va., said "Edwards didn’t make a speech when he visited the Wise County fairgrounds Wednesday. He didn’t outline the changes he’ll make if he’s elected as the country’s leader. Nor did the former North Carolina senator take questions from the dozens of local, regional and national press representatives who covered the event. Instead, on the last day of a three-day tour aimed at highlighting the plight of poverty-stricken Americans, he listened. At an hour-long roundtable discussion conducted outside at three picnic tables, Edwards asked organizers of the annual Remote Area Medical outreach, which provides free health services, to tell him stories about healthcare problems in Southwest Virginia. He asked for it, and he got it, and so did the crowd of about 200 spectators who turned out to see a presidential candidate." (Read more) Deal also has a good "behind the scenes" story.

The nearest daily paper, Pikeville, Ky.'s Appalachian News-Express, focused on Edwards' appearance in adjoining Letcher County. Reporter Loretta Tackett wrote that the overflow crowd at the Appalshop media and arts center was nevertheless "small," and didn't give a number, but said "The stopping place was fitting for Edwards' tour, as Appalshop was founded in 1969 per President Lyndon B. Johnson's declaration of the 'War on Poverty.'" (Read more)

Carrie Kirschner of The Independent, a daily in Ashland, Ky., focused on an Edwards challenge to the current president, quoting the former North Carolina senator and vice presidential nominee: "I want to invite George Bush to come here. I want President Bush to see the other America and the challenges the people are faced with. I want him to understand what’s happening out here." (Read more)

The Lexington Herald-Leader highlighted youth concerns about drugs. Cassondra Kirby wrote, "They told him that teens and young adults are overdosing at an alarming rate, while others are trapped in a vicious cycle of daily drug use. Young people described common images of high school students crushing and snorting pills on desks at school, and babies born addicted to drugs." (Read more)

For The Courier-Journal of Louisville, political reporter Joe Gerth wrote, "Tracing the steps of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards issued a call yesterday for economic and social change in America," and quoted him: ""This country needs a movement to restore our values. We need a movement that actually embraces work again, not just wealth. … We need a movement to provide hope and opportunity." (Read more)

On PBS NewsHour, Roger Simon of Politico.com said Edwards is following a "risky" strategy by focusing on poverty, because poor people are a small part of the electorate, but "He plays well in rural America." Susan Saulny of The New York Times reported in a story summarizing the three-day tour that Edwards "suggested that [his] 'two Americas' theme . . . was an appeal for help not just for the poor, but also for all working Americans bypassed by the nation’s prosperity." (Read more)

Last night, Edwards was in Roanoke -- not part of "official Appalachia," as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission boundaries -- but the event had that theme, because it starred bluegrass-music patriarch Ralph Stanley. The Roanoke appearance wasn't part of the official tour, but Edwards' 17-minute speech was punctuated by his recent travels," The Roanoke Times' Mason Adams reports. (Read more)

Edwards is scheduling at least one more stop in rural Kentucky. The Mississippi River town of Columbus, population 229, won an online competition for an Edwards town-hall event, beating out "cities such as Dallas and Los Angeles," thanks to Columbus native and University of Kentucky graduate Shawn Dixon, Herald-Leader Political Writer Ryan Alessi reports on the paper's PolWatchers blog.

Edwards concludes his anti-poverty tour where Robert F. Kennedy did, in Prestonsburg, Ky.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards concluded his three-day poverty tour this afternoon at the old Floyd County Courthouse in Prestonsburg, Ky., where Robert F. Kennedy concluded a similar tour as he prepared to run for president in 1968. "This country needs a movement to restore our values. We need a movement that actually embraces work again, not just wealth," he said, according to The Courier-Journal's Stephenie Steitzer.

Samira Jafari of The Associated Press bureau in Pikeville wrote: "Edwards said he wasn't trying to mimic his 'political hero.' 'I don't deserve to be compared to Bobby Kennedy,' Edwards told the crowd that spilled across the courthouse lawn. He added, 'I want America to remember what he did decades ago. I want you to join us to end the work Bobby Kennedy started.'"

AP put Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the same story, saying he "made his own speech for the nation's poor on Wednesday, speaking at a recreation center in the nation's capital, and in a jab at his rival, argued that combating poverty was hardly new for him, a one-time community organizer in Chicago. Edwards, coming off criticism for getting $400 haircuts and building a new 28,000-square-foot mansion, repeatedly tapped into his own humble roots in an effort to connect with the coalfields."

Jafari reported that Edwards "heard firsthand accounts of the problems plaguing the region" and "was especially moved" by Wise, Va., coal miner James Lowe, 51, "whose cleft palate kept him from talking for five decades until a dentist last year volunteered to perform a $3,000 orthodontic procedure for free. Edwards shared the story ... at his other stops, saying Lowe and other low-income workers 'deserve better.'"

In Whitesburg, Ky., Edwards said the only solution to such problems is universal health care, and said that Lowe, "instead of being angry at living 50 years with such a condition in the world's richest nation, "was thankful and appreciative" for his treatment. "When are we going to start treating people like him … with the dignity and respect that they’re entitled to?" he asked.

Tennessee looks to Kentucky for example of how to plan rural water lines

When Tennessee legislators saw that Gov. Phil Bredesen had budgeted money to run a water line "up a mountain in Warren County for residents who don't have water, tempers flared as legislators demanded to know why one county got money when others needed it, too," Sheila Wissner reports in The Tennessean of Nashville.

Rep. Mike McDonald of Sumner County, just north of Nashville, "gathered more than three dozen signatures on a bill that would have authorized the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to develop a statewide water plan and loan fund to help communities extend more water lines. It would have been patterned after the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority, which requires all projects using state or federal funds to be vetted through an organized chain of local and regional councils. The bill didn't pass this session, but McDonald says he'll push the issue again next year." he told Wissner, "We need a statewide comprehensive plan to get water to people, and then we wouldn't have these arguments."

A study the department did for McDonald in 2004 "estimated that 5 percent of Tennessee households didn't have municipal water. It would take 18,470 miles of lines to get water to 112,000 households, at a cost of $1.7 billion, the study estimated," Wissner writes. "The study did not delve into the number of households with no clean, reliable alternative water source. That number remains unknown. The problem is most evident in Middle and East Tennessee, where well drillers fight the rocky terrain" and drill dry 10-20 percent of the time.

Sometimes, existing wells go dry. That happened to Tammy and Wayne Blatt, who live on a farm near Carthage in Smith County. In photo above, by Shelley Mays of The Tennessean, Tammy Blatt washes dishes outside near the drums of water her family must buy and haul twice a week, at considerable expense.

Massachusetts lags in rural broadband, as studies show economic impact of high-speed Internet

Massachusetts, often on the cutting edge of many things, has left much of its rural population far behind in access to broadband, or high-speed Internet service. "State officials have yet to develop a comprehensive policy for fixing the telecom time warp. But this fall, three Western Massachusetts towns will participate in an experiment to test wireless networks in rural settings," reports Carolyn Y. Johnson of The Boston Globe.

"We are creating a new kind of ghetto," said Don Dubendorf , president of Berkshire Connect Inc., which works to bring broadband to businesses and institutions in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. "It's morally wrong. It's stupid economically, it's dangerous from a public safety point of view, it's absurd from a public education point of view." This fall, Dubendorf's company and Pioneer Valley Connect "will create WiFi hot spots in the towns of Florida, New Salem, and Worthington, with funding from the quasi-public John Adams Innovation Institute," Johnson writes. "The idea is to use radio transmitters to spread the signal from high-speed lines to create square-mile wireless broadband networks for homes, businesses, and municipal buildings, without the massive investment needed to wire every home."

The main argument for broadband is economic. Johnson cites a study by Gov. Deval Patrick's cable commissioner, Sharon Gillett, last year as co-chair of the Broadband Working Group of the Communication Futures Program of the Massacusetts Institute of Technology. It "found that among 22,390 ZIP codes, communities with broadband access recorded greater growth in jobs, businesses, and property values. The report said communities with broadband access experienced an additional 1 to 1.4 percent in their job growth rate between 1998 and 2002. Those communities also saw an added 0.5 to 1.2 percent growth rate in the number of businesses." (Read more)

Another study, reported today by the Center for Media Research, found that broadband use is "strongly correlated with household income." The study, by Leichtman Research Group found that:

• 68 percent of all households with annual incomes over $50,000 now get broadband vs. 59 percent last year; 39% of all households with annual incomes under $50,000 get broadband vs. 27% last year.
• While 81 percent of all US households have at least one computer, only 56 percent of those with annual household incomes under $30,000 have a computer at home. Just 45 percent of households with annual incomes below $30,000 subscribe to an Internet service at home, compared to 92 percent of households with annual incomes above $75,000.
• Overall, only 7 percent of all Internet subscribers say that broadband is not available in their area.
• Nearly three-quarters of households in the US now subscribe to an Internet service, and broadband has grown to account for over 70 percent of all online subscribers at home. LRG forecasts the total number of broadband subscribers will increase by over 40 million over the next five years. (Read more)

Edwards tells Appalachian coalfield audience he's for a carbon limit, lower each year

Deep in the Central Appalachian coalfield this morning, presidential candidate John Edwards said the U.S. should put a limit on its emissions of carbon and reduce the limit each year so that emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas that causes global warming, are reduced 80 percent by 2050. A carbon limit is anathema to the coal industry, the region's major employer, but the industry's safety and environmental records make it controversial, and Edwards' remarks won applause from the crowd at Appalshop, the media and arts center in Whitesburg, Ky., and its Appalachian Media Institute for young people.

Edwards' comments came in response to a question from Nathan Hall, a Berea College student from Floyd County, who said he plans to return to the area to start a bio-fuel company. Edwards said the government should require permits for carbon emissions and auction them to “the polluters pay. … That money should be used to fuel your biofuel work” and other alternative fuels. “I’m glad you’re doing work on biofuels,” he told Hall. “That is the answer, ultimately.” Biofuels are big in Iowa, the first presidential voting state.

Edwards said a biofuel industry “can create at least a million new jobs” and the government can “direct the jobs to the places where they’re most needed,” with grants to train at least 150,000 a year, he said. “This is a great economic opportunity, and an opportunity that I think could have a real impact on this area,” he said. That would appear to require the commercial scale-up of technology to create ethanol from cellulose; Appalachia is heavily forested and raises little biofuel feedstocks such as corn and soybeans.

Stephenie Steitzer of The Courier-Journal reports that there was room for only 150 of the 300 people who showed up, so Edwards stood on top of a picnic table to address those who had waited outside and listened. "We so badly need Americans to understand that level of dignity and respect that people are entitled to," he said. "I don't know about you, but I actually believe in a country where everybody is entitled to the same level of respect. My father didn't go to college and worked in cotton mills all his life and is worth every bit as much as any president of the United States. I believe that, I will always believe it." (Read more)

Edwards is a former senator from North Carolina who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004. He is on three-day tour to highlight his goal of eliminating poverty, and his final day retraces the steps of a poverty tour conducted by New York Sen. Robert Kennedy before he declared his presidential candidacy in 1968. His final stop is in Prestonsburg, Ky. (See previous blog postings.)

Some in the region "have mixed feelings" about Edwards' visit, reported Danielle Morgan of WYMT-TV in Hazard, the region's only commercial television station. Those feelings were also reflected in a story by Samira Jafari of The Associated Press bureau in Pikeville. At his first stop today, in Wise, Va., Edwards appeared conscious of concerns about how his trip might reflect on the area: “These challenges do not define the people of this area; It’s their strength and resilience, and continuing to show courage, that defines them.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader says today that much has changed in the region since Kennedy's visit: “Gone are the tar-paper shacks that dotted hillsides -- barely enough to ward off the cold of winter, even with coal stoves blazing inside. Outhouses are no longer the norm. And one-room schoolhouses are unheard of,” writes Cassondra Kirby, the paper's new reporter in Hazard. “Today, four-lane highways cut through the mountains, connecting residents with regional hospitals, community colleges, chain restaurants and retailers such as Wal-Mart. But poverty has not been whipped. High school dropout rates are still higher than in the rest of the state; per-capita income is comparatively low; and many lack access to public water and sewer systems.” Kirby's story, with help from Somerset reporter Bill Estep, focuses on ideas people in the region have for improving it. To read it, click here. (Thanks to the Herald-Leader for the photo of Edwards in Whitesburg, by Charles Bertram; and to Appalshop's WMMT for streaming coverage on its Web site.)

Rural wireless users to get break on roaming fees, but not as much as rural telecom companies want

The Federal Communications Commission is about to enact new regulations allowing customers of rural wireless companies "to roam in more cities and at lower rates," reports Paul Davidson of USA Today.

"Rural carriers complain that the large national carriers often charge them exorbitant roaming fees and sometimes refuse to let them roam on their networks," Davidson reports. "The strategy has squeezed many rural providers out of the market, says the Rural Telecommunications Group," a lobby for small carriers.

While the new FCC rule would require carriers to offer roaming agreements at "just and reasonable rates," it would not grant rural companies' request for a firm limit on roaming fees. "Perhaps more significant: It does not cover roaming for broadband services, a fast-growing market," Davidson writes. And if you think those cell towers along rural interstates are good news for customers of rural cell companies, not necessarily. By erecting those towers, the big firms are "reducing their reliance on small companies for coverage." (Read more)

Here are the best community papers in America, says the National Newspaper Association contest

The National Newspaper Association has announced the top placers in the general-excellence competition of its annual Better Newspaper Contest. The general-excellence awards are based on placement in detailed contest categories, which include both news and advertising. NNA has about 2,500 members. More than 85 percent are weekly papers, but its contest also has categories for dailies. The first-, second- and third-place winners will be announced at the NNA Convention and Trade Show in Norfolk Sept. 25-30.

Among dailies with circulation of 16,000 and larger, the top three papers in the contest (in no particular order here or in any category) were the Antelope Valley Press of Palmdale, Calif., and two from Colorado: the Greeley Tribune and the Daily Times-Call of Longmont. Under 16,000, the top three were the Lebanon (Mo.) Daily Record, The Journal Review of Crawfordsville, Ind., and The Daily Record of Baltimore.

NNA listed six winners among non-dailies with circulation over 10,000, indicating that the judges gave three honorable mentions in the category as well as first, second and third places. The six are The Taos (N.M.) News; The Ellsworth (Me.) American; the San Francisco Bay Guardian; the Idaho Mountain Express of Sun Valley; The Independent Weekly of Lafayette, La.; and The Peninsula Gateway of Gig Harbor, Wash. We're most familiar with the Ellsworth paper, which acts like a daily; it covers the state capital and regularly does project reporting, currently on Maine's program to give all students laptop computers.

Among non-dailies with circulations of 6,000 to 9,999, two of the three winners are from favorite spots for recreation and second homes: The Eastern Edition of the Southampton Press, which serves the Hamptons area at the end of New York's Long Island; and the Jackson Hole News & Guide of Jackson, Wyo. The other winner was a perennial, the N'West Iowa Review of Sheldon, Ia. The paper carves its own niche in many ways. It is a regional weekly that is famous for publishing scores of special sections each year, it doesn't put content online, it doesn't spell out "Northwest" in its name, and would like us to put "Review" in all capital letters, but we don't approve of such typographical tyranny. However, we do approve of the job that Peter Wagner, his sons and staff do with the Review and their local weekly, the Sheldon Mail-Sun.

The winners among non-dailies 3,000 to 5,999 include some well-known, quality papers: The Hutchinson (Minn.) Leader, the Litchfield (Minn.) Independent Review and the Hood River (Ore.) News. Under 3,000, the winners are the Curry County Reporter of Gold Beach, Ore.; The Community News of Aledo, Tex., just west of Fort Worth; and the Mount Desert Islander of Bar Harbor, Maine, a paper that has the same ownership as The Ellsworth American. They make quite a pair Down East.

It's another poverty tour for this advocate, who wishes all would-be presidents would take one

As a teenager, Dee Davis (right) saw Robert Kennedy visit his hometown of Hazard, Ky. Thirty years later, he drove another liberal senator, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, around the Eastern Kentucky Coalfield to see miners suffering from coal dust. Tomorrow, he will be part of the final day of former Sen. John Edwards' anti-poverty tour, to Wise, Va., and Whitesburg and Prestonsburg, Ky. He says today in an essay on National Public Radio:

"I wish they were all coming. These things matter. It is not about party; it's about eyeballs. And there are sights that need seeing. When no one shows up to witness the obliteration of mountaintops — vast hillsides being shoved into creek beds — then desperate mining practices flourish. When the rest of the country never sees the broken families and children cut adrift from addiction, then a pharmaceutical company can get off with a fine and a pat on the rump for years of dumping pain drugs like OxyContin into these rural communities." (For a report on the case, see The Rural Blog archive for June 20.)

"People will tell you government doesn't work. But I've seen it work. It starts with somebody showing up and making an effort. I have also seen it fail. Mostly that happens when no one's paying attention." (Read more) Davis, a filmmaker by trade, is president of the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg and a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Perry Bacon Jr. of The Washington Post reports on the tour's first day: "The 37 million Americans in families that make less than $20,000 a year, the federal definition of poverty, are not the kind of group that can push Edwards to victory. Poor people vote at lower percentages than their wealthier counterparts, by definition don't have much money to give to candidates and aren't an organized political constituency like the elderly."

"He undoubtedly knows it's an issue without a real constituency that votes," Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of the Third Way think tank, told the Post. "It's brave and bold, or brave and foolhardy." But Edwards said in New Orleans, "I think the country cares" about the poor. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, said the tour will "put a face on the working poor," beyond statistics. (Read more)

Scrap metal prices make farm eqipment a bigger target for thieves

Jennifer Hemmingsen of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids reports, "As scrap prices cause metal thefts to soar, thieves are increasingly looking to Iowa farmsteads for heavy payloads like hog feeders and other equipment, police say. Already this year, Iowa law enforcement departments have identified 105 metal thefts, items that were stolen to sell for scrap, instead of for their own sake, according to the Iowa Department of Public Safety. Last year, there were 96 . . . up from 34 in 2005." (Read more)

The department's Jim Saunders tells Pat Curtis of Radio Iowa, "The thieves are expanding their thefts to rural farm locations. They're stealing metal hog feeders or other equipment made of galvanized and stainless steel." Saunders urged owners of valuable metal objects "to consider installing motion-sensitive lights and surveillance cameras to deter potential thieves," Curtis reports. "He says it's also a good idea to secure buildings containing tools or metal objects with quality locks. Saunders adds that placing unique markings on metal items can help in identifying the stolen material." (Read more)

Edwards tour prompts reminiscence from reporter who covered Kennedy for an Appalachian weekly

As former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina takes his 2008 presidential campaign on an anti-poverty tour, ending it by retracing the steps Sen. Robert F. Kennedy made on a similar tour in 1968, Thomas N. Bethell remembers. Bethell covered Kennedy for The Mountain Eagle, the Whitesburg, Ky., weekly newspaper, and later was research director for the United Mine Workers and managing editor of The Washington Monthly. He wrote about the Kennedy and Edwards tours for today's edition of the Daily Yonder, the new rural-news site with a political bent. Here are some excerpts:

“Are we really expected to believe that a candidate with a net worth on the high side of $60 million, a brand-new 28,000-square-foot house, and an apparent addiction to $400 haircuts wakes up every day obsessed with the goal of ending poverty in America? . . . Maybe the charitable thing to do is wait and see. After all, it was only after Robert Kennedy was martyred, a few months after his Appalachian tour, that we all decided he was genuine in his determination to battle poverty. . . . He might have been a wonderful president, the first since Franklin Roosevelt to offer real and lasting hope for hard-pressed people, rural and urban alike. Or not. In the winter-spring of 1968 it was much too soon to tell, and the summer never came.” (Photo by Paul Gordon)

“It’s a measure of how desperate some of us were that we suppressed private doubts and wrote glowing accounts of his tour. Over the ensuing decades that tour has acquired the aura of something more spiritual than political, and it’s not surprising to see John Edwards striding along the pilgrim’s path, hoping that some fragment of the enshrined Kennedy mystique will adhere to his campaign. But skepticism and cynicism, although arguably unavoidable, aren’t very useful. There would seem to be intriguing parallels between 1968 and 2007, especially in the apparent fact that the candidates’ great wealth and good fortune failed to blind them to the needs of those less lucky or gifted. And the fact that both were more wedded to well-meaning rhetoric than to far-ranging policy proposals shouldn’t be held against them, not at this point at any rate. No one, least of all Roosevelt, knew what he would do for the downtrodden until he was actually in the White House. No one, early in 1968, knew what Robert Kennedy would do: It was too soon to know, and then it was too late. No one, in mid-2007, knows what John Edwards would do or whether, if elected, he would actually have the leverage to enact the initiatives, far-reaching or otherwise, that he might deem essential to redirect and revitalize the mostly afflicted and largely outsourced economy of Appalachia. So, rather than being a time to render some sort of judgment, it seems to be a time to watch and listen … maybe even to hope.” For Bethell's entire article, click here.

Today, a voter in New Orleans asked Edwards on ABC's "Good Morning America" how he could justify a $400 haircut. “I don't,” he replied with a smile. He said that in a busy campaign, such things are arranged by others, and “I should have been paying closer attention and it shouldn’t have happened.” When host Diane Sawyer broadened the inquiry, implicitly questioning the sincerity of Edwards' anti-poverty campaign, he replied, “A completely fair question … If you look at the arc of my life, I came from having very little to having a lot. … I want that chance to be there for everybody.” He said he was involved in urban ministries in North Carolina, helped organize union workers, pushed for raising the minimum wage (which he said could be the single most important solution to eliminating poverty), and started a program for poor kids in eastern North Carolina that gives them their first year of college free if they work. To watch, click here.

Rural children are more likely than urban kids to be obese, study finds

“Here’s a surprise,” writes Geri Nikolai of the Rockford Register Star in Northern Illinois. “Children growing up in rural areas are more likely to be overweight or obese than their city counterparts. That’s the conclusion drawn by researchers at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford after reviewing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on 46,000 children.

“Of those, nearly 8,000, or 18 percent, were overweight or obese. And rural children were 25 percent more likely to have weight issues than city children, said Dr. Martin Lipsky, regional dean of the college and co-author of the study.” Lipsky told Nikolai, “Rural children may have less access to healthier foods. There may be a fast-food restaurant in small towns, but not other types of restaurants. They may lack diversity in fresh fruits and vegetables in their markets. Sometimes there is less opportunity for physical activity like sports, a sidewalk to walk on or even having to park far away from an event and walk.”

A box with the story summarizes other findings: “The study showed that overweight rural children are more likely than their urban counterparts to be white; live in households at 200 percent below the poverty level; have no health insurance; have not seen a doctor for preventive care in a year; be female; use a computer for non-school work more than three hours a day; and watch TV for more than three hours a day.” (Read more)

Politico.com, Institute director take a closer look at John Edwards' upcoming anti-poverty tour

"A controversial war rages abroad, having claimed the lives of thousands of American troops. In the White House, an increasingly unpopular president limps to the end of his term. And out in some of America's poorest precincts, a telegenic candidate who hopes to replace him calls on the nation to put an end to poverty. Bobby Kennedy in 1968? Yes, and consciously echoing him this week, John Edwards in 2007," writs Richard Allen Greene of Politico.com, the new, well-staffed, Washington-based Web site for political news.

We're not usually in the business of quoting ourselves, but think in this case to refrain would be hiding our little light under a bushel, so here's a section of Greene's story:

Al Cross, the veteran Kentucky political writer who now heads the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, said there could be political capital in the poverty tour, which Edwards is calling "The Road to One America."

"This is not about Appalachia, it is about all the poor regions of America: the black belt, the Rio Grande, the small towns of the Great Plains that are emptying out. He is trying to tap into the part of the base that is still sensitive to these social equality messages," Cross said.

Edwards is not polling noticeably better among poor people than he is among Democrats at large, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC survey, which showed him at 10% support in Democratic and Democratic-leaning households with incomes below $20,000. Hillary Clinton drew 55% and Barack Obama 20%.

Cross dismissed that result as meaningless: "You can't put any stock in national polling of poor people. Poor people have got a lot of other things to worry about other than an election more than a year away."

For the rest of Greene's article, and some uninhibited comments from readers, click here. For a look at advance stories and editorials from the Appalachian stops on Edwards' tour, go to The Rural Blog for Saturday, July 14.

Democrats divided over curbing farm subsidies, an idea Bush supports; committee meets Tuesday

House Democratic leaders have said they will not accept a "status quo" Farm Bill, which is up for renewal this year, but they are getting some unexpected disagreement from members of their caucus, including new members from districts where relatively few farmers get payments from commodity programs. (Dept. of Agriculture map)

Freshman Democratic Rep. Zack Space of eastern Ohio has a "district of small and medium-size farms . . . far down the list of those receiving government farm payments," but opposes "major changes in the traditional price and income support programs," Dan Morgan reports in today's Washington Post. Space is one of nine freshman Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee, which will take up the bill on Tuesday. He told the Post, "I'm with the farmers back home who are generally satisfied with the commodity program we have."

Morgan writes, "A coalition of Democratic-leaning environmental organizations, anti-poverty groups and church organizations are pushing to redirect some subsidies to conservation, wetlands preservation, rural development and nutrition. But top Democrats are reluctant to push too hard for changes that could put at risk Democratic freshmen from 'red' states . . . where the farm vote is still a factor in close elections."

Morgan's story is a good summary of the issues swirling around the bill, which finds the Bush administration wanting reforms that Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota resists. To read it, click here.

Rural towns in Midwest turn sour on Iraq war as more of their youth die, Washington Post says

Tipton, Iowa, gave President Bush "the benefit of the doubt" when he launched the war in Iraq, but now that the town of 3,100 has lost two soldiers, its attitude toward Bush and his strategy has "turned more personal and more negative," reports Peter Slevin of The Washington Post's Midwest Bureau in Chicago.

"While opposition to the war has been stronger and more visible on the East and West coasts, small towns in the heartland and the South have provided the Bush administration with some of its most steadfast backers. But that support has cracked amid the echoes of graveside bagpipes and 21-gun salutes, which have been heard with greater frequency in recent months in small Midwestern communities. Two prominent Republican senators who broke with the president this month come from the nation's midsection. Sens. George Voinovich (Ohio) and Richard Lugar (Ind.) said Bush needs to find a new direction in Iraq and a way to start bringing the troops home."

Back to Tipton, and its reaction to the recent death of Army Spec. David W. Behrle: "Regular business at City Hall stopped for a week before Behrle's body came home, as staff members made sure routes were cleared, streets were swept and flags reached the right places. 'In a town of 3,000, you wouldn't expect two of them to be killed,' Mayor Don Young said. The town's weekly newspaper, the Tipton Conservative, devoted its entire front page to the rain-swept, flag-bearing crowds that greeted the return of Behrle's body. Photos of Behrle, from a childhood Halloween to a tour in Iraq, filled an inside page. Included in the brief text was a comment from his family: 'He is 'The Man," and our hero.'" (Read more)

Krista Clark of the Conservative noted in an editorial that the county is now home to a third Iraq casualty: "Cedar County had less contact with Donald Griffith, Jr., the son of Diane and Donald Sr. of Mechanicsville. Twenty-nine when he died in a firefight in Tal Afar, Donny was a career Army soldier who was stationed and living in Ft. Lewis, Wash. before being sent to Iraq. But even though Donny had grown up in Las Vegas, the Griffith family has deep roots in Cedar County, especially in Mechanicsville, and it was back to his parents’ and his wife’s home, back to Cedar County, that he came to be buried after losing his life in the conflict." (Map from MSN Encarta)

Edwards already making headlines in Appalachia with planned Wednesday stops retracing RFK's

A planned visit by Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was the lead story in this week's edition of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., and a planned stop on the other side of Pine Mountain in Wise, Va., won Edwards a story in the Coalfield Progress of Norton, Wise County's main paper. The Big Sandy News, named for far Eastern Kentucky's main river, had three articles pegged to Edwards' planned stop in Prestonsburg, including an editorial headlined "Visit is welcome but could have negative impact." (MapQuest route)

The Eagle said Edwards would be the first presidential candidate in Letcher County since Robert Kennedy came in 1968, as an "unannounced candidate" exploring poverty. Edwards is retracing the Appalachian part of Kennedy's route Wednesday to conclude a tour focused on poverty. The Eagle ran a large Associated Press color photo of Edwards on its front page, and continued its story to the editorial page, with a Tom Bethell photo of Kennedy in the town of Fleming-Neon. The paper noted that "President Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty in 1964 from Eastern Kentucky." The Big Sandy News, a regional, twice-weekly paper, noted Johnson's visit "to Martin and Johnson counties," which the paper serves.

"While we're pleased that a presidential candidate is showing an interest in Eastern Kentucky, we're a little cautious about Edwards' visit since the theme of his tour is poverty," opined Tony Fyffe of the News, predicting "news footage of rundown homes, trash-ridden roads and streams, etc. . . . We don't deny that thousands upon thousands of Eastern Kentuckians live in poverty, but that's the one negative image the region and the state have had to overcome for decades. Forget about the wealth and all of the successes, Kentucky is nothing more than a poverty-stricken state, according to the national media. . . . If he wins the Democratic nomination and then the presidency, we hope Edwards returns to the region and puts his poverty action plan to work. Something tells us, however, that we'll be just a memory as soon as the tour bus leaves the region next Wednesday." The Big Sandy News has a subscription-only Web site.

Bonnie Bates of the Progress, citing a campaign release, says the former U.S. senator from North Carolina "will arrive in Wise sometime on July 17. . . . On July 18, Edwards will make an appearance at the county fairgrounds as volunteers prepare for this year’s Remote Area Medical health outreach, according to a media contact for Edwards’ campaign." Then Edwards will to to Whitesburg to answer questions from young people at the Appalshop media and arts center, and finally to Prestonsburg for a speech at the old Floyd County Courthouse. The Progress has a subscription site. The Mountain Eagle is not online.

Edwards' tour "will reinvigorate an old campaign theme and test an even older notion: that talking about poor people is a politically losing proposition," writes Mark Z. Barabak of the Los Angeles Times. "The poverty rate in America has stayed fairly constant since the late 1960s. But polls show that the issue of poverty and homelessness consistently ranks low among voters' priorities. The discussion has become so fraught with moral and racial overtones that presidential contenders often find it best to say little or nothing. But Edwards insists that "people do care" about those less fortunate and believe government has a role, even a responsibility, to help those who cannot help themselves. They just have to be asked." Nine paragraphs later, Barabak writes, "Edwards could also benefit from talking about poverty, precisely because there is apparently so little political gain, demonstrating a personal conviction that transcends polling." At the story's end, he notes that the poverty tour could also counteract recent publicity about Edwards' wealth and $400 haircut. (Read more)

Maine and the Dakotas have the deadliest rural roads, study concludes

Maine had the deadliest rural roads in the United States in 2005, followed by North and South Dakota, with Iowa and Vermont tied for fourth, according to research by the Center of Excellence on Rural Safety at the University of Minnesota. The rankings are based on percentage of fatalities outside cities with a population of 5,000 or more, without regard to rural road mileage; Maine's figure was 92 percent.

In Minnesota, the state with the 15th deadliest rural roads, the study found that 72 percent of the state's traffic fatalities in 2005 occurred in areas that were defined as rural, reports Sarah Kirchner of the Albert Lea Tribune: "Overall, the Upper Midwest is a deadly place for drivers on country roads." (Read more) To see where your state ranked in 2005 and 2004, click here.

Kentucky venture-capital firm pushes complete plumbing-and-electric unit to improve housing

Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp. invests in southeastern Kentucky, one of America's poorer regions. The area has much substandard housing, often so categorized because of plumbing issues. Now the venture-capital firm has started a business of its own, to address the housing problem and eventually create jobs.

Kentucky Highlands is building and installing “housing cores,” which have a finished kitchen, bathroom and laundry room ready to be hooked up to plumbing and electricity. It plans to demonstrate the unit at an “extreme build” home project with 150 volunteers in McCreary County on Monday, the sixth house with one of the cores. The company plans to build 14 more, for a total of 20, but says the units can also be used to upgrade houses that lack modern plumbing; it says there are 17,000 such homes in Appalachian Kentucky.

The cores installed so far have been built by contractors. The company hopes to develop a market for the cores and build a factory to construct them and hire people from the region, said Elmer Parlier, its vice president for investments. Even without a factory, “It would increase the quantity and quality of affordable housing in the area, increase homeownership opportunities in KHIC’s service area and create jobs while providing construction skills training,” said Jerry Rickett, president of the company.

“Providing all the mechanical parts of the house in a factory-built unit ... will make it easier for volunteer groups, such as Habitat for Humanity, to build houses because most of the complex plumbing and electrical tasks have been done before work at the site begins,” KHIC said in a news release.

Retired Army Gen. John Abizaid says Northern Nevada is like the Afghanistan-Pakistan border

Retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid now lives in or near Minden, Nev., about 10 miles south of the state capital of Carson City. Anjeanette Damon of the Reno Gazette-Journal said in a post on the paper's Inside Nevada Politics blog that Abizaid said some interesting things about his new neighbors in rural Northern Nevada. She quoted from the Inside the Pentagon newsletter, which had Abizaid saying:

"It's kind of like the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. All the locals are armed. They absolutely hate the federal government. And there's a certain amount of drugs that pass back and forth across the border. So, for those of you who are not in a militia, please come and see me because I'm starting one up there." (Original article is available for $5 from InsideDefense.com's NewsStand.)

Damon backgrounds: "Abizaid spent four years as U.S. Central Command chief, overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other military operations involving critical Middle Eastern countries. His retirement coincided with Bush's surge in Iraq. Abizaid wasn't known as a proponent of the surge and had testified to Congress that the Army couldn't sustain an additional 20,000 troops. Bush ordered a surge of 30,000. According to the Weekly Standard, Abizaid's philosophy in the middle of the war was that American troops acted more as an 'irritant' than a solution and that Iraqi forces would become too reliant upon them for counterinsurgency work." (Read more) Thanks to Rocky Mountain Report for the tip.

In 'Mayberry,' ex-publishers, local bigwigs starting a paper; existing paper's new owner sues to stop it

"The owners of the The Mount Airy News and The Tribune in Elkin are trying to stop the former publishers of those two papers from printing a competing newspaper Monday," reports Sherry Youngquist of the Winston-Salem Journal. "Heartland Publications LLC has filed a lawsuit against former publishers Mike Milligan and Rebel Good, saying that the men crippled its newspapers last month by taking key employees and information with them" to start a new paper called The Messenger, based in Mount Airy, population 8,000 and the hometown of Andy Griffith and model for TV's Mayberry.

"An attorney representing the new newspaper and its staff said that the group has not filed a response and has 30 days to do so," Youngquist reports. Both men resigned to protest staff cuts made by Heartland when it bought the papers last month. "The suit alleges that information critical to the newspapers, such as passwords, notebooks and circulation lists, was erased or was missing." The suit seeks an injunction and asks that the men "return business information and not employ former workers or contract with former customers." (Read more)

In an earlier story, Youngquist wrote, "Media analysts say that the startup newspaper’s success will depend a lot on the economy but also on the person bankrolling it. C. Richard Vaughn, the CEO of John S. Clark Co. Inc., is the chief financial backer of The Messenger. Vaughn’s general-contracting company does business throughout North Carolina and the Southeast. He is listed on the articles of incorporation filed with the state as the incorporator of Surry Publishing Group Inc., which will publish The Messenger. But Surry Publishing Group’s principal address belongs to Granite Development, which is operated by Vaughn’s son, C. Richard Vaughn Jr., and Craig Hunter, the chairman of the Surry County Board of Commissioners.

"It is unclear how The Messenger’s editorial staff will handle coverage of Hunter and Surry County government. Milligan declined to be interviewed further. But the fact that The Messenger’s editorial staff is made up entirely of local newspaper people who have been in the community many years is a big advantage, said Jock Lauterer, a lecturer and director of Carolina Community Media Project at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 'It also depends on a willing readership,' he said. 'If I was going to do this, I’d start a free newspaper and circulate widely.' Milligan declined to say how the newspaper would be circulated." (Read more)

Lady Bird Johnson: A would-have-been reporter who protected rural landscapes

We salute Claudia Alta Taylor "Lady Bird" Johnson, who died yesterday at 94. She did a lot for rural America by promoting highway beautification -- the first legislative initiative by a first lady -- and boosting the political career of a president who advanced programs that help rural people. She was the first chair of Head Start, "the early childhood education program that was a major compnent of his War on Poverty," notes Elaine Woo of the Los Angeles Times. (Read more)

She wanted to be a newspaper reporter, and placed in the top 10 of her graduating class in journalism at the University of Texas, but Lyndon Johnson prevailed. In the White House, she was often his closest adviser, and in 1964, after he signed the landmark Civil Rights Act, she corageously campaigned for his election in eight Southern states where opposition to the law was strong. A life well lived, much in our service.

Julie Ardery of the Daily Yonder pays tribute to Lady Bird, with some lovely pictures of wildflowers along the highways and these closing lines: "This April in Texas was a banner season for bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush and white prickly poppy. A bold final spring for Lady Bird." To read the entire tribute, click here.

Congressional earmarks going through with little coverage, Novak says

Conservative political columnist Robert Novak writes in the latest Evans-Novak Political Report that the professed transparency of House Democrats when it comes to earmarks on appropriations bills is "a sham" because they routinely vote to approve each other's earmarks and that isn't being covered by the news media.

"Amendments to strike transparent earmarks are brought up for a floor vote, they are overwhelmingly defeated and the news media completely ignore the story," Novak writes. "Searches of Lexis-Nexis and Google News suggest that no one -- and we mean absolutely no one -- has picked up on the story of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and the embarrassing fight he lost to keep an earmark in his district." We suppose Novak does not include in his definition of "news media" Politico.com, which reported June 28 and July 3 on the removal of McHenry's earmark for the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree in Spruce Pine, N.C.

McHenry blamed the 249-174 vote against his $129,000 earmark on his outspoken criticism of Democrats. "Since his election in 2004, McHenry has become one of the Democrats' most vocal critics on the House floor," Politico.com reported July 3. The earlier story noted that the vote marked the first time that Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has succeeded in removing an earmark. For the latest Politico.com story, click here. It notes, "Interestingly, four members of McHenry's own state delegation — usually tight-knit groupings — voted against him: Republicans Howard Coble, Robin Hayes and Sue Myrick and Democrat Brad Miller."

Novak may be more on point when it comes to traditional and local coverage. We checked the archives of the Morganton News-Herald, the daily newspaper closest to Spruce Pine, and the latest story on the matter was a June 21 report from Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press, which prominently noted McHenry's earnark, called him a "burr in the side of Democrats running the House" and said an unnamed "senior GOP member of the Appropriations Committee pointed McHenry's earmark out to reporters, calling it 'interesting.'" Sounds like the Democrats wanted at least one earmark they could defeat on the floor. (Read more)

We found nothing on the matter in the archives of the Asheville Citizen-Times, a larger paper almost as close to Spruce Pine but not in McHenry's 10th District. The Hickory Daily Record, largest paper in the 10th, noted the committee action in an editorial critical of earmarking but we found nothing in its archives on the floor vote. Both papers are owned by chains that have Washington reporters. But reporters don't have to be in Washington to write about such matters; there's plenty of information on the Web. Use it!

Small-market TV stations more likely to air 'stealth advertising,' study says

In what researchers call an “apparent threat to the long-term credibility of television news,” 90 percent of 294 monitored newscasts included at least one instance per newscast of “stealth advertising,” which researcher Jim Upshaw calls a commercial message “cloaked in some other garment than a normal commercial.”

“Small-market stations showed more commercially influenced material” than medium- and large-market stations, ScienceBlog.com reports. “Advertisers’ messages are infiltrating small-market television newscasts at about the same percentage that owners of digital video recorders are skipping the commercials.”

Upshaw, a former reporter at the NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C., is a professor of journalism at the University of Oregon. “Stations are not telling their viewers that what they are putting on the air in news or feature stories or in other news content is being done to court a specific advertiser,” he said. “I think people need to learn to be media literate, informed viewers of television. We may not be able to stop these practices but we need to be aware that these practices do exist.” (Click here for the ScienceBlog summary.)

Upshaw's co-researchers were David Koranda, a visiting professor of advertising, and former journalism doctoral student Gennadiy Chernov, now at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan. They “monitored two evening newscasts a month at 17 U.S. stations over four months in early 2004, including a February ratings sweeps week,” ScienceBlog reports. “The researchers explored promotional tone or content, product placement on the screen within stories or even on the desks of anchors, sponsored segments within newscasts and news framing, in which a legitimate story quietly raises positives images of companies or brands. . . . They documented 750 instances, about 2.5 individual slots per newscast – with an average of one minute, 42 seconds per occurrence – of commercial influences.” The study is in the June issue of Electronic News.

Weekly newspaper in rural Kentucky may be small, but it thinks big

The Todd County Standard of Elkton, Ky., has a circulation of about 2,500, but it does a better job than many larger weeklies of putting items on the public agenda. On May 17 we noted its four-story package about the need for broadband Internet service in the county. That was part of the paper's year-long "Focus on the Future" series, which continued last week with "Some BIG Ideas" for the county of 12,000 people.

The paper presented the ideas without regard to what they might cost, but none of them were outlandish. "Let's just talk about what might be possible and perhaps someday someone with the resources or the drive might just succeed," said the staff-written story. In other words, the paper is planting seeds, giving them a first dose of water and hoping others will agree to take over. That's a worthy mission for a local media outlet.

The ideas included a drive-in theater; a theme park; a wedding chapel, which might appeal to nearby Fort Campbell; a museum that shows how tobacco, still an important local crop, is grown; and "a computer for every child in Todd County that needs one." The paper invited readers to submit their own ideas, which will be published in the Aug. 29 edition. The Standard has no Web site, but click here and here to see the pages.

China, under world scrutiny for food safety, executes food-and-drug chief for taking bribes

"In perhaps a demonstration of how serious China is about shoring up the safety of its food products, Beijing executed the former head of its State Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday," Tom Johnston of MeatingPlace.com reports. Zheng Xiaoyu, 63, was convicted of taking bribes to approve untested medicine that was blamed for at least 10 deaths. The official news agency Xinhua (which posted the photo, of Zheng in court last month) did not disclose the manner of execution. "Zheng's execution was concurrent with a press conference at which China's top food and drug regulatory agencies vowed to crack down on counterfeit food and medicine," MeatingPlace reports. "Beijing has been pressured to make vast improvements after a spate of health scares tied to sub-par products, including exports of tainted food and fake drugs. (Read more) For a longer Associated Press report, click here. For the Xinhua story, click here.

Both Lancaster dailies, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, among Editor & Publisher's '10 that do it right'

Only two U.S. daily newspapers have "Lancaster" in their name, both serve many rural communities, and both are on Editor & Publisher magazine's annual list of "10 That Do It Right," a group of newspapers "shattering the perception that this is a slow-moving dinosaur of an industry that refuses to adapt to rising needs and fresh opportunities," the magazine says. "This is never a '10 Best' list, thankfully, but rather a tip of the hat to a handful of news-papers of widely varying size that have made great strides, and can serve as a model, in one or more important areas: technology, marketing, reporting, design, online, photography, community awareness, diversity, advertising, even blogging and social networking." E&P says of the Lancaster papers:

"The Lancaster (Pa.) New Era was doing something right long before the past year. It won state awards, and was the rare afternoon daily with almost as much circulation as its morning counterpart. But the New Era, founded in 1877, received national attention when its coverage of last October's tragic shootings of five Amish schoolgirls won honors including the Pulliam prize and the Religion Communicators Council's Wilbur Award." Its circulation is 41,306; Lancaster's 2000 population was 56,348, the county's 470,658.

"Lancaster, Ohio, pop. 35,335, won't ever be confused with Manhattan. Columbus is the nearest big city, about 35 minutes away. Go north, says Lancaster Eagle-Gazette Publisher Rick Szabrak, and you're in new suburbia. Go south, and you're in farmland. So when Managing Editor Antoinette Taylor-Thomas is interviewing any young person — especially a candidate of color — she stays 'blatantly honest' about homey Lancaster, where racial and ethnic minorities make up just 5.3 percent of the community." The Gannett Co. Inc. paper's circulation is 13,166. (Details on E&P's subscription-only Web site)

Community pharmacists say they're 'outraged' about proposed Medicare changes

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposed cuts in pharmacy reimbursements Friday, prompting "outrage," a word not usually seen in business-group press releases, from the National Community Pharmacists Association, many members of which are in rural areas.

NCPA said the proposed reimbursement formula for generic prescriptions, based on a new definition of "average manufacturer price," will drive some pharmacies out of business and "dramatically reduce patient access to community pharmacies." The group said independent pharmacies "represent 42 percent of retail pharmacies and serve a large number of underserved rural and densely populated urban areas."

The group said the average community pharmacy's profit in 2006 was $128,968, and a Government Accountability Office report in December estimated that the loss expected as a result of the new formula would be $120,622. "In other words, virtually all profit would be eliminated," NCPA said. "Under these business conditions many community pharmacies will be forced to no longer participate in Medicaid program or even go out of business, which will leave their patients to either find other alternatives for their pharmacy services or be forced to visit emergency rooms and doctor’s offices. The cost to taxpayers will increase because of this misguided approach." For the full press release, click here.

More reasons to care about the Freedom of Information Act reform bill stalled in the Senate

The Rural Blog and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues are not advocates -- except for coverage of issues, and laws that help journalists perform their First Amendment functions. That's why we keep reminding you that the House has passed a bill to improve the Freedom of Information Act and the Senate is sitting on it, because of a "hold" by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the 41-year-old FOIA is that costly lawsuits are often the only way to challenge federal agencies' denial of records or get them to even respond to records requests. Most states have an official, such as the attorney general, to provide a quick, inexpensive appeal. The bill in Congress would create a FOIA ombudsman to mediate disputes between agencies and record-seekers. It would also restore meaningful deadlines for agency, create real consequences for agencies that miss deadlines; clarify that FOIA applies to agency records held by outside private contractors and set up a FOIA hotline service. For details on the bill, from sponsor Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., click here.

Some requests filed almost 20 years ago are still pending, according to the Knight Open Government Survey released July 2 by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. "In January, the archive filed FOIA requests with 87 federal agencies for copies of their 10 oldest open or pending requests," writes Stephanie Kanowitz, Web editor for Federal Computer Week magazine. "Five agencies — the State Department, Air Force, CIA and the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and FBI — reported FOIA requests that have been pending for at least 15 years, according to the report. Other findings include: Ten agencies misreported their oldest pending FOIA requests to Congress in their fiscal 2006 Annual FOIA Reports, which are required by law; 10 agencies misrepresented their FOIA backlogs to Congress; several agencies contradicted their own responses to the archive’s two previous “10 oldest” audits by reporting requests this year that were significantly older than those they produced in 2003 or 2005.

So, why should rural journalists care about FOIA? Because it opens to door to information in federal agencies that can have a lot to do with things in your area -- crime, education, the environment and federal spending, to name a few. If you think the act needs improving, write about it -- and ask your senator about it the next time he or she comes to visit. For an example, from the Kentucky New Era, see the third item below.

Weekly papers in N.C. win appeals-court ruling preventing abuse of open-records exception

The North Carolina Court of Appeals has reversed part of a trial-court ruling that allowed local ofificals to keep two weekly newspapers from getting a document because it had been placed into a personnel file.

"Whether a document is part of a 'personnel file' ... depends upon the nature of the document and not upon where the document has been filed," the panel wrote in a unanimous decision. The case was brought by The News-Reporter of Whiteville, a twice-weekly paper, and the weekly Tabor-Loris Tribune against Columbus County officials who withheld a letter sought by the papers.

In September 2005, when the county Board of Commissioners was considering whether to renew a contract with its medical director, the emergency-services director sent the board a letter discussing his work with the medical director and recommending that a new one be hired. The county made no change, and denied the newspapers' request for a copy of the letter, arguing it was exempt from the open-records law because it was in a personnel file and dealt with the performance of a county employee, The Associated Press reports.

The appeals court wrote, "While portions of the letter are protected from disclosure, those portions can be redacted, and the remainder — falling within the Public Records Act — provided to plaintiffs." The court said making anything in a personnel file exempt from disclosure "could result in governments transforming a newspaper clipping that addressed a government employee's performance into a confidential record," AP reports. For the full story, via the First Amendment Center, click here.

Romney has commanding organizational lead in Iowa, but stretches the truth

"Six months before the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney has taken a commanding organizational lead in this traditional kick-off state," reports Jonathan Martin of Politico.com. "John McCain's financial difficulties have forced him to dramatically scale back his Iowa campaign, and it's not clear whether former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani or ex-Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson will fully engage in the Hawkeye State caucuses. (Associated Press photo)

"That leaves Romney as the sole representative of the GOP top tier to commit to the traditional Ames Straw Poll and offer himself to voters for up close and personal inspections. The former Massachusetts governor has 20 full-time staffers, coordinators in most of the state's 99 counties, and a group of about 50 "super volunteers" that has already swept through the universe of likely caucus-goers with initial phone calls and have begun going door to door in key precincts. His effort got a big boost last week when McCain, down to just $2 million cash on hand, halved his Iowa staff to seven to save money."

Martin blames McCain's support of the failed immigration bill, and notes that Guiliani has made changes in his Iowa staff, but you have to wait until the second page of the story to see the reason we think Romney is ahead in Iowa: He's the only candidate who's run TV and radio ads. And they were good ads. (Read more) They were compelling. However, they stretched the truth, says the Annenberg Political Fact Check at the University of Pennsylvania, which said today that he "exaggerates his record and traffics in ambiguous language." We'd spell it "trafficks," but we put much stock in FactCheck, because it's run by Brooks Jackson, a former investigative and political reporter for The Wall Street Journal and CNN. To read his latest on Romney, go to http://www.factcheck.org/.

Kentucky newspaper holds McConnell's feet to the fire on Freedom of Information Act reform bill

The Kentucky New Era, an 11,000-circulation daily in Hopkinsville, Ky., continues to take a leadership role in trying to get the U.S. Senate to consider a bill that would improve the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The paper published an editorial June 27 asking Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to get Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to release his “hold” on the bill, which the Justice Department opposes. Last week, when McConnell was in town, New Era reporter Joe Parrino buttonholed him on the subject.

“McConnell defended a move by his colleague Sen. Jon Kyl to hold back legislation on the release of public information," Parrino reported. "McConnell said he hadn’t yet discussed the matter directly with Kyl but understood his colleague’s reservation to be about the bill’s national-security implications. McConnell dismissed any notion that Kyl is trying to bury the bill.”

“All Sen. Kyl is saying is that we need to bring it up, debate it and he may need an amendment,” McConnell told Parrino. “It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not going to pass.” Parrino noted, “Kyl placed the hold secretly and owned up to it only when the Society of Professional Journalists queried every single U.S. senator about the matter.” (Read more) For details of the bill, click here.

Freshman Democrats Webb, Tester, McCaskill are the U.S. Senate's ‘redneck caucus’

The Rural Blog has taken note of Virginia's Jim Webb since he started running for the U. S. Senate in 2006, mainly because a major part of his strategy was to bring rural voters back to the Democratic Party -- and he succeeded. He also started making waves very quickly, having a personal dust-up with President Bush at the White House. Now he and Bush are back on speaking terms, and he has "lowered his profile," but his criticism of Bush's Mideast policies, which helped elect Webb, "is unabated," reports The Virginian-Pilot.

Dale Eisman reports from Washington that Webb "and several other first-term Democrats, particularly Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, have formed an informal ' redneck caucus.' It's an allusion to their residence in 'red,' or Republican-leaning, states and their interest in lunch-pail issues, including raising the minimum wage and the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to overseas workers." McCaskill told Eisman, "We were the three that probably were least expected to win" and also "come from the reddest states."

Eisman writes, "Their arrival in the Senate has given comfort to North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan. For years, he's been a lonely crusader for populist causes like increased controls on international trade and the repeal of tax laws that he says encourage companies to export jobs. Dorgan told Eisman, "It's a breath of fresh air to have Sen. Webb and about five others. A lot of senators put on a blue suit . . . and think they're 10 feet tall, but Jim has a great sense of humor." (Read more)